Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  Probably the best chance of release of the captives from Renarno clutches was not his own intervention but diplomatic negotiations through Renarno's reputed allies, the South African vernment in Pretoria However, even the South Africans would not be able to achieve anything if they were unaware an American citizen had been captured by Renamo.

  "Okay." Sean made his first firm decision. 161 have to get a message back to the American embassy in Harare, immediately he realized that this took care of his other major worry. Matatu and Pumula were his re risibility. Up to n SPO aw he had been leading them into a suicidal situation. They had been more and more on his conscience the closer they drew to the Renamo column. This was the excuse he had been looking for.

  "I'll send both of them back to Chiwewe with a message for Reerna." He opened the flap of his backpack and found his small leather-covered notepad. He began to compose the message.

  Reema had all Riacardo,s and Claudia's personal details on the safari files, everything from their physical descriptions to their passport numbers. Riccardo was an important and influential man. Sean did not tell her he was dead, but implied in his message that both father and daughter were captives of Renamo. The U.S.

  embassy could be relied on to react swiftly, and it would be in contact with Pretoria within hours of receiving the news.

  Of course, since the imposition of U.S. sanctions on that country the relations between Washington and Pretoria were at a historically low ebb, and the influence Of the United States in southern Africa was no longer the overriding factor it had once been. Nonetheless, the South Africans could be relied on to intercede with Renamo on the simplest humanitarian unds.

  "Okay, that takes care of Matatu gro and Pumula. " Sean signed the message, tore the Pages out of his notepad, and folded them. As an afterthought he filled another Page of instructions for Reerna covering the $500,000 that Riccudo's estate owed them. She was to Pass these on to Sean's lawyer.

  At last he had to make his own decision. He could run back across the border, carrying the message himself, and within two or three days he could be drinking Castle lager in the Meikles Hotel and working out how to spend Capo's half-million bucks. That was the sensible and logical thing to do, but he had already dismissed the idea before he considered it.

  "So I'll follow the column and wait for an opportunity." He grinned at the absurdity of his decision. "What opportunity?" he wondered. "A chance to shoot my way into an encampment of fifty-plus tells with the old.577, free the three prisoners, and with one mighty bound whip them a hundred miles to the border, carrying Claudia with her injured leg on my back!"

  He stood up, resettled his pack between his shoulders, and crept back up to the slope where Matatu and Pumula were lying watching the escarpment. He dropped down beside Matatu.

  "Anything?" he asked. Matatu shook his head. They were silent for many minutes while Sean plucked up his courage to tell the little man he was sending him back.

  While he did so, he scowled through the binoculars at the spot up the long valley where he knew Renamo, had set their ambush.

  Matatu seemed to sense that something unpleasant was brewing.

  He kept glancing at Sean with a troubled expression, but when Sean finally turned to him, he burst into a sunny, ingratiating grin and wriggled his entire body in his eagerness to please and to stave off whatever was coming.

  "I remember," he said eagerly. "I remember who he is."

  Sidetracked for the moment, Sean frowned at him in Puzzlement. "Who? Who are you talking about?"

  "The leader of the Renamo," Matatu told him happily. "I told you yesterday I knew his footprints. Now I remember who he is."

  "Who is he, then?" Sean asked suspiciously, ready to reject the information.

  "Do you remember when we jumped from the bideki to attack the training camp at the fork of the rivers?" Matatu twinkled at him and Sean nodded guardedly. "Do you remember how we killed them in the river-bed?" Matatu chuckled with the delightful memory of it. "Do you remember the one we caught while he was trying to burn the books? The one who refused to march, and you blew his ear in?" Now he giggled at that fine joke. "The blood came out of his earhole4and he squeaked like a virgin."

  "Comrade China?"

  "China." Matatu had a little difficulty with the pronunciation.

  "Yes, that is the one."

  "No!" Sean shook his head. "It isn't China. That's not possible!"

  Now Matatu had to cover his mouth to muffle his delighted squeals of laughter. He loved it when he was able to confound and astound his master. There was no better joke than that.

  "China!" He spluttered with mirth and stuck his forefinger in his own ear. "Pow!" he said, and it was so funny he almost choked.

  "Comrade China."

  Sean stared at him unseeingly while he adjusted his mind to this extraordinary intelligence. All his instincts were to reject it out of hand, but Matatu didn't make mistakes of that nature.

  "Comrade China!" Sean breathed softly. "That changes the odds a little."

  He cast his mind back to that distant day. The man had made such an impression on him that even from the crowded and confused events of that bloody little war he retrieved a clear image of Comrade China. He remembered his fine Nilotic head and the dark intelligent eyes, but his physical features were hazy compared to Sean's memory of the sense of confidence and purpose the man exuded. He had been a dangerous man then, and Sean expected that by now he would be even more experienced and formidable.

  Sea shook his head. At one time his nickname in the Scouts had been "Lucky Courtney"; it looked as though he had used up his ration of that commodity. He couldn't have chosen anybody he would have wanted less to command the column of Renamo than Comrade China.

  Matatu had almost exhausted his mirth and was now battling with the hiccoughs that followed, clutching at his naked belly and throat to hold them down, while occasional spasms of laughter interspersed the loud hiccoughs.

  "I'm sending you back to Chiwewe," Sean told him harshly, and the laughter and hiccoughs were instantly extinguished. Matatu stared at him in disbelief and utter despair. Sean could not face those eyes and their tragic accusation.

  He turned to Pumula and brusquely called him across to where he lay. "This note is for the chef at camp. Tell him to radio the message to Miss Reema in Harare. Matatu will guide you back.

  Don't stop to pick your nose on the way, do you understand me?"

  "Mwnbo. " Pumula was an old Scout. He would obey without argument or question.

  "All right, go," Sean ordered. "Go now." And Pumula held out his right hand. They shook hands the African way, gripping palms and then thumbs and then palms again. Pumula crawled down off the ridge and, once he was clear, jumped to his feet and trotted away. He did not look back.

  At last Sean forced himself to look at Matatu, who was crouchk ing low to the ground, trying to make his small frame smaller still to escape Sean's notice.

  "Go!" Sean ordered brusquely. "Show Pumula the way back to Chiwewe Matatu hung his head and shivered like a whipped puppy.

  ISO

  NINE,

  "Get the hell out of here!" Sean growled at him. "Before I kick your black butt!"

  Matatu lifted his head. His eyes were tragic, his expression abject. Sean wanted to pick him up and hug him.

  "Get out of here, you silly little bugger!" Sean made a face of terrifying ferocity. Matatu crept away a few paces and then paused and looked back imploringly.

  "Go!" Sean lifted his right hand threateningly. At last the little man accepted the inevitable and slunk away down the slope. Just before he disappeared into the coarse scrub at the foot of the slope, he paused and looked back one more time, seeking the faintest sign of encouragement or weakness. He was the epitome of dejection.

  Deliberately Sean turned his back on him and raised the binoculars to study the terrain ahead, but after a few seconds the image bluffed. He blinked his eyes to clear them and despite himself glanced quickly over his s
houlder. Matatu had vanished. It was a strange feeling not to have him there. After a few minutes Sean lifted the binoculars again and resumed his study of the escarpment fine, pushing Matatu out of his mind.

  On either side of the mouth of the long valley, the red rock cliffs stretched away unbroken as far as he could see. They were not particularly y high; at the lowest points they were only a few hundred feet, but they were vertical and some stretches were even overhanging where softer strata of rock had been eroded from under the harder superimposed upper layers, and formed a shallow horizontal cave.

  The entrance of the valley was as inviting as the mouth of a carnivorous plant to an insect, and the cliffs were forbidding and inaccessible, but Sean concentrated upon them. He swept them with the binoculars in both directions as far as he co d Of course, it might be necessary to move some miles along the cliff to find a route that was Scalable, but that would burn up precious time. He kept swinging the binoculars back to the same point.

  A quarter of a-mile to the right-hand side of the nearest rock portal of the valley, there was a route that looked as though it might just go, but it wouldn't be easy without a companion and lacking even basic rock-climbing equipment. He would be burdened by the rifle and his pack, and he would have to make the attempt in the dark. To go out on that exposed cliff in daylight would be to invite a little AK target practice.

  Through the binocular lens he picked out a rocky buttress that was faulted like a fire escape. It seemed to offer a way around the overhanging section of cliff, and above that it led to a narrow horizontal ledge running several hundred feet in either direction.

  ir From that ledge there appeared to be two possible routes to the top of the cliff, one a narrow crack or chimney and the other an open face down which grew the exposed serpentine roots of a huge ficus tree that stood tall and massive against the skyline. The roots crawled and twined against the sheer red rock like a nest of mating pythons, forming a ladder to the top of the cliff.

  Sean glanced at his wristwatch. He had three hours to rest before it was dark enough to make the attempt, and suddenly he felt exhausted.

  He realized that it was not only the physical exertion of the chase but also the emotional drain of having glimpsed Claudia and Job in the Renarno column and the parting with Matatu.

  He anti tracked meticulously back off the ridge and searched for a secure place to hole up during what was left of daylight. When he found a hidey-hole among rock and scrub with a safe line of retreat, he loosened his bootlaces to rest his feet but kept the rifle in his lap and slumped down over it. He munched a maize cake and protein bar from his emergency pack and drank a few careful mouthfuls from his water bottle.

  He knew he would wake when the sun touched the horizon. He closed his eyes and almost instantly fell asleep.

  On the journey back to Chiwewe camp, Matatu led Pumula at a steady trot. They kept going through the night and the next afternoon stopped to refill their water bottles in the marsh where they had spotted Tukutela from the air.

  Pumula wanted to rest. Matatu did not bother to argue with him. He faced toward the west and went away at his swaying trot on his skinny knob-kneed legs so Pumula was forced to follow.

  They crossed the border between Mozambique and Zimbabwe during t dark hours of the night and ran into the safari camp in the middle of the following afternoon.

  The consternation caused by their arrival was tremendous. In his agitation, the chef even forgot to don his tall cap and snowy apron before rushing out of his hut to greet them and demand the news of the mambo.

  Matatu left Pumula to hand over Sean's written message and answer the barrage of questions. He went to his hut and curled up like a puppy on his bed, an ancient iron frame with a lumpy coir mattress, a gift from Sean and his most treasured possession. He slept through all the subsequent excitement, even the chef bellowing into the microphone of the VHF radio, attempting by volume alone to reach Reema in Harare, almost three hundred miles distant.

  ISO

  April, When Matatu awoke, he had slept five hours. The camp was dark and silent. He repacked the small leather pouch that was his only luggage, retrieved his remaining store of precious snuff from under his mattress, and refilled the horn that hung around his neck.

  He crept quietly from the sleeping camp. When he was well clear, he straightened up and faced toward the east.

  "Silly little bugger," he said happily and began to run, going back to his rightful place beside the man he loved more than a father.

  Sean woke with the first chill of evening in the air. Ahead the cliffs of the escarpment were fading into the smoky purple dusk. Sean stretched and looked around for Matatu. When he remembered he was gone, it gave him a physical jolt in the pit of his stomach. He tied his bootlaces and drank again. When he stoppered the water bottle, he held it to his ear and shook it. Still half full.

  He opened the breech of the.577, slipped the cartridges out of the twin chambers, and exchanged them for two others from the loops on his bush jacket. He squeezed an inch of black camouflage cream from the crumpled tube and rubbed it over his face and the backs of his hands. That completed his preparation and he stood up and moved quietly up the slope.

  He spent the last twenty minutes of daylight glassing the entrance to the valley and the top of the cliffs through his binoculars.

  As far as he could see, nothing had changed. Then he studied and memorized the route up the cliff face.

  As the night spread its cloak over the escarpment, he slipped quietly over the ridge and crept tip toward the base of the cliff. The bush grew dense and tangled there, and it took him much longer than he had anticipated to reach the rocky wall. It was almost completely dark by then, but he was able to identify the starting point of the climb by a small bush growing in a crack of the cliff that he had marked through the binoculars.

  Sean had never used a carrying sling on his rifle. It could be mortally dangerous in thick bush when the sling caught on a branch just as a buffalo or wounded elephant began its charge. He lashed the short-barreled weapon under the flap of his backpack with his sleeping bag. The butt stuck out on one side of his shoulders and the muzzles on the other, making an awkward unbalanced load. He went to the cliff face and laid his hands on it, getting the feel of it. The stone was still hot from the sun and the texture was smooth, almost soapy, under his fingers.

  Before the war, rock climbing had been one of his passions. He loved the risk, the terror of the open face and drop sucking at his heels. He had climbed in South America and Europe as well as on the Drakensberg and Mount Kenya. He had the requisite sense of balance and the strength in his fingers and arms. He could have been one of the top international climbers but for the intervention of the bush war. However, he had never attempted a climb like this before.

  His boots were soft velskoen without reinforced toes. He had no ropes, no anchorman, no pitons or carabiner, and he would be opening this route in darkness, barely able to see the next hold above, following a pitch he had studied from a mile distant, going blind on red sandstone, the most treacherous of rock.

  He stepped up onto the face and began to climb. He used his toes and his fingers, leaning back from the rock, keeping in fine balance, never stopping, never jerking or fighting the holds, flowing upward as smoothly as molten chocolate.

  At first the holds were solid, the kind he called "jug handles"; then the face leaned out slowly and the holds were mere flakes and indentations. He used them lightly and briefly. A touch of his fingers, a nudge of his toes and he was past, putting the minimum of weight on each but even then feeling the frailer flakes of stone grate and creak threateningly under his fingers-but he was gone before the hold could fail.

  In places he could not see above his head and he climbed by instinct, reaching up in the darkness, his fingertips as sensitive as those of a pianist as they brushed the rock and then locked into it.

  Without check or pause, he covered the first pitch and reached the ledge a hundred feet up f
rom the base.

  The ledge was narr*er than it had appeared through the binoculars, no more than nine inches wide. With the pack strapped on his back and the Afle protruding on each side of his shoulders, it was impossible for him to turn his back to the rock and use the ledge as a bench to sit upon.

  He was forced to stand facing the cliff, his heels hanging over the edge and the weight of pack and rifle pulling on his shoulders, trying to drag him backward. He was less comfortable on the ledge than he had been on the face. He began to shuffle along it, spreading his arms like a crucifix to steady himself, his fingers groping for irregularities in the rock face, the sandstone an inch from the tip of his nose.

  He went left along the ledge, seeking the vertical crack he had spotted through the binoculars. It had been his first choice of the M I two possible routes. Sean had the rock climber's instinctive distrust of roots and branches and tufts of grass. They were always unreliable, too treacherous to risk life on.